Let Teachers SHINE Winner 2026: Matthew Harper-Duffy – Local History Hub
A primary school teacher is tapping into local history to help pupils build confidence, connection, and stronger skills of reading and writing.
Matthew Harper-Duffy has been awarded £25,000 from Let Teachers SHINE to expand Local History Hub, a teacher-led network that helps schools across the country use their local landmarks and community heritage to enhance pupil’s learning across different subjects.
“I think local history is a really good leveller because it literally meets children where they’re at,” explained Matthew.
The project is designed to make history lessons more relevant and relatable for every child, enabling them to connect with their communities in a meaningful, lasting way.
By focusing on familiar places, local buildings and community figures – as well as distant civilisations like the Egyptians, Greeks or Romans – Local History Hub helps pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds build a genuine sense of belonging with where they live.
The project is designed to strengthen cultural capital for all students equally. As Matthew explains: “I always think that the cultural capital opportunities schools offer are very middle class. They tend to be learning an instrument, going on an overseas holiday, or what you can get from the Waitrose food aisle.
“With community heritage you don’t need to have been anywhere to have that baseline – it’s your local town or city,” Matthew added.
Matthew designed Local History Hubs based on teacher feedback. Rather than a one-off session where resources were given out, teachers asked for ongoing, collaborative training where they could develop resources together over time.
The project has initially started with 5 pilot hubs and Matthew is progressing towards a network of 34 teacher-led hubs across the country, with a significant concentration of hubs in the North.
A prominent feature in the hubs’ calendar is Local History Day where schools are encouraged to transform their hall into a museum for the afternoon. While some schools used assemblies or special activities, one secondary school in Northumberland even dedicated an entire day to the project – running six different local history lessons on a rota for every form.
“I think everyone loves the local history unit because the engagement tends to be really high. It just lights touch fires in a way that other things don’t,” said Matthew.
In addition to building connections, Local History Hub also aims to boost outcomes for disadvantaged pupils through the use of teacher-supported activities and by creating opportunities for cross-curricular writing.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to see some really rich writing from children who perhaps previously wouldn’t get engaged with the writing topic in the same way,” said Matthew.
“We’d like to see that piece of writing shows an improvement, particularly in tiered vocabulary being used confidently and effectively,” Matthew added.
Matthew believes that Local History Hubs will help schools better meet Ofsted requirements and he intends to track how the project can drive measurable progress for struggling students.
Longer term, Matthew intends to use pupil-voice surveys to measure the project’s impact on their sense of identity and participation, both in school life and outside the classroom.
“I think it’s really encouraging for children to hear respected adults talk about where they live as if it’s important, because it is,” said Matthew.
On receiving the award, Matthew said: “More than anything going through the process of having the idea scrutinised was really valuable. SHINE saying that it was something they’d like to support, that was the validation that I felt like I needed, it proved there is real substance to the idea and that it is going to make a transformative impact.”